


Gather Stones Together

by lferion



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Episode 4x07 - Icebreaker, Episode Tag, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Tag to a Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 11:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Declan wakes, rumpled, the fuzzy taste of whiskey and tears in his mouth, the sky visible through the undrawn curtains is that curious shade of not-black that presages sunrise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gather Stones Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Penknife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/gifts).
  * Inspired by [To Every Purpose](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5462) by Penknife. 
  * Inspired by [To Every Purpose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/311819) by [Penknife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife). 



> I seem to have written a tag to Penknife's tag "To Every Purpose" to S4x07 "Icebreaker"
> 
> I had this vague thought that this was going to be a drabble or at most a double-drabble. Yeah. Right. Behold actual ficlet that started out a taglet-to-a-tag.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks go to Morgynleri for beta duties.

* * *

When Declan wakes, rumpled, the fuzzy taste of whiskey and tears in his mouth, the sky visible through the undrawn curtains is that curious shade of not-black that presages sunrise. Not quite seven, then. Relatively late, and an uninterrupted six hours sleep. That’s a little surprising on its own, both the sleeping and the not being disturbed, since its not as though being in James’ rooms makes him difficult to find. After his own room, this was one of the places they would look, certainly Alistair (either Alistair — no, only one again, now. The leaden weight of loss-grief-responsibility squeezes his heart, and for a moment he wants nothing more than to curl right back into the pillow, under the covers (except he isn’t, actually, under the covers; he’s mostly on top of them) and hide from everything, drown himself in sleep. Not an option. (Though now he understands on a new level some of what drove Watson to the solace of the needle on occasions like this.) Too much to do. Deliberately, Declan finishes the interrupted thought: elder Alistair would not be deterred from rousing him simply because it was James’ door, though it might make some of the others think twice. Which is a point in favor of moving, a practical voice in his head remarks.

It is a point, but he’s not going to be moving furniture today. He does let himself relax back on the bed, watching the sky lighten by imperceptible degrees. There is a scoured feeling under his breastbone to go with the grit in his eyes and the salt on his lips. Fleetingly, he wonders what kind of effect tears would have on a magoi. (They’d done a post-mortem/debriefing on the plane; the subject of tears had not arisen. Rationally, Declan knows there was little or nothing they could have done differently. That is cold comfort for the loss of his people. His responsibility, yes. Not, as Magnus said more than once, his fault. Eventually, more than his rational mind will accept that.)

He’s not going to be crying again today either. That part feels done — he hadn’t really expected to get there, even with the whiskey, any more than he had expected to sleep, but he had, and was the better for it. For definitions of better that meant he could be that good example for the younger staff, pick up and carry on doing all those things a Head of House had to do, difficult and not. And perhaps it had even helped that this had been James’ room, James’ bed. James had understood the forms grief took, the catharsis of tears.

The window is distinctly brighter now. Declan rolls over and gets up. He wants a shower, and while the en-suite bath has towels, it doesn’t have his razor or kit. Or clean clothes. His shoes are where they fell when he toed them off, only now they are islands in a somnolent yellow puddle. The soles are very slightly singed. An unexpectedly fond smile tugs at the corners of Declan’s mouth as he extracts them from the slime mold’s embrace. Squishy ripples awake, edges feathering out in pseudopods that stretch and wiggle before contracting back. Declan cannot help but shake his head at the creature.

“Come on, you. Let’s get you some breakfast before you do decide to eat my shoes,” Declan says, deciding not to bother putting them on just to go down the hall. He pads sock-footed through the sitting room, and Squishy follows him out the door.


End file.
